Lawyers who represented the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny are sentenced in a Kremlin crackdown on dissent at levels unseen since Soviet times.

Russia on Friday sentenced three lawyers who had defended Alexey Navalny to several years in prison for bringing messages from the late opposition leader from prison to the outside world. The sentences come as Russia -- in the midst of a massive crackdown during its Ukraine offensive -- seeks to punish Navalny's associates since his unexplained death in an Arctic prison colony last February.

Six Russian oil tankers still under construction by Russia's Zvezda shipyard were included in U.S. sanctions imposed last week, the first time Washington is known to have banned tankers before they even set sail,

Scott Bessent, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for Treasury secretary, said he would support dialing up sanctions on the Russian oil industry to end the war in Ukraine.